Marsh

Island

Old Town Island

Indian Island

Cow

Hemlock

Little Birch

Lewey Snake

Sapiel

Sugar

Olamon

Ground

Socks

Goose

Crag’s

Long

Gordon

Half Moon

Orono

Birch

Nicoli’s

Mattanawcook

Hockamock

Orson 

White Squaw

Teal text: island name circa 1835 

Black text: island name post-1835

Thorofare Islands

Fiddler

Tomar

Hog

Grass

Nicolar

Houston

Little Nelson

Chokecherry

Freese (Freeze, also Mussquash)

Thorofare

Jackson

Foster

Horse

Beatham

Mohawk

(Mahockanock)

Bride

(Socs Islands)

(No Name Island)

Tarbox

(Craig)

Socks

Twin Islands

Black Boom Islands

Hersey

Snow

Brown Islands

Maine

Passadumkeag River

Mattawamkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Penobscot River

5 mi

5 km

0

Penobscot land

Calais

Baring

New Brunswick

Maine

Head of Tide

St. Stephen

Mill

Road

Road

Mill

International

boundary

Disputed island 

Salmon Falls

Bailey’s Rips

Sprague’s Falls

S a i n t C r o i x

R i v e r

1 mi

1 km

0

10 mi

10 km

0

Gouldsboro

No. 1

No. 10

No. 11 No. 12

No. 13

Harrington

No. 3

No. 17

No. 21

No. 19

No. 18

No. 26

No. 25

No. 24

No. 23

No. 22

No. 27

No. 15

No. 6

No. 10

No. 9

No. 8

No. 4

No. 5

No. 14

No. 13

No. 12

Machias

No. 18

No. 19

No. 23 No. 24 No. 25

No. 29

No. 30

No. 31

No. 35

No. 36

No. 37

No. 41 No. 42 No. 43

No. 4 No. 5

Granted to

Machias

Academy

No. 7 HANCOCK COUNTY

WASHINGTON COUNTY

Princeton

St. Stephen

Calais

St. Andrews Robbins Town

Pleasant Point

Eastport

Lubec

St. George

Peter Dana Point

Machias

Magaguadauic River

Passamaquoddy Bay

1798 Boundary

DISPUTED TERRITORY

1783–98 Boundary

New

Brunswick

Deer Island

Campobello Island

Grand Manan

Island

Passamaquoddy land

Campobello

Island

Lubec

West

Quoddy

Head

Carrying

Place Cove

Carrying

rights,

50 acres 1 mi

1 km 0

See detail map, left

See detail

map below

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN

SETTLEMENT

Eel

rights

Nemcass Point

(Governor’s Point)

100 acres

JB Lacoute’s land

100 acres

Pleasant Point

10 acres

(100 acres by 1801)

Indian Twp

23,000 acres

Lewy

Island

10 acres

Pine Island

(White Island)

150 acres

15 islands in the 

Saint Croix River 

between head of 

tide and mouth of 

West Branch

Nemcass Point

(Governor’s Point)

100 acres

JB Lacoute’s land

100 acres

Eel rights

One additional eel right

granted on northern Saint Croix

Eel rights

Eel

rights

Pleasant Point

10 acres

(100 acres by 1801)

Indian Twp

23,000 acres

Schoodic Reserve

1786-1801

Lewy

Island

10 acres

Pine Island

(White Island)

150 acres

15 islands in the 

Saint Croix River 

between head of 

tide and mouth of 

West Branch

HANCO CK COUNTY

Hampden

Bangor

Orrington

Eddington

Frankfort Buckston

Penobscot

Blue Hill

Trenton

Sullivan

Eden

Mount Desert Sedgwick

Deer

Isle

Swan

Isle

Cranberry Isles

Prospect

No. 2

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8

No. 8

No. 14

No. 20

No. 26

No. 32

No. 38

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 5

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 15

No. 21

No. 27

No. 33

No. 39

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 16

No. 22

No. 28

No. 34

No. 40

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 41

No. 4

No. 4

No. 4

No. 5

No. 4

No. 4

Bingham’s Purchase

Howard Pease

King

N O R T H D I V I S I O N

M I D D L E D I V I S I O N

One million acres in these divisions

sold to Wm. Bingham Esq.

No. 9

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Mattawamkeag

River

Passadumkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Orono

Bangor Brewer

Castine

Head of tide

No. 3

No. 4

No. 1

No. 2

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN 

SETTLEMENT

Upper four 

townships 

1786 Treaty:

Black (Conary)

& White Island

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Piscataquis River

Mattawamkeag

River

Passadumkeag

River

Hampden

Bangor

Buckston

Penobscot

Blue Hill

Trenton

Mount Desert

Isle au Haut

Deer Isle

Sullivan

Sedgwick

Indian Lands

Indian Lands

No. 2

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8

No. 14

No. 20

No. 26

No. 32

No. 38

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 15

No. 21

No. 27

No. 33

No. 39

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 16

No. 22

No. 28

No. 34

No. 40

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 4

No. 4

No. 4

No. 5

No. 4

Bingham’s Purchase

HANCO CK COUNTY

Howard Pease

King

N O R T H D I V I S I O N

M I D D L E D I V I S I O N

One million acres in these divisions

sold to Wm. Bingham Esq.

No. 9

Majabigwaduce

Castine

Bangor

Head of tide

S t a t e L i n e

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN 

SETTLEMENT

1786 Treaty:

Black (Conary)

& White Island

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Passadumkeag

River

Mattawamkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Penobscot land 

Fort Pownall

1759–77

Majabigwaduce

Castine

Deer Isle

Mount Desert

Isle au Haut

THIRTEEN TOWNSHIPS

10 mi

10 km

0

Head of tide

LAND OPEN FOR 

SETTLEMENT

e United States and Great Britain contested the territory

lying east of the Penobscot River in the American Revolution (1775–1783) 

and again in the War of 1812 (1812–1816). e Saint Croix boundary 

agreement (1798) conrmed American possession of the area west of the 

Saint Croix River (the Schoodic) and Chiputneticook Lakes. To consolidate 

American control over the area, the governments of Massachusetts and Maine 

(aer 1820) encouraged settlement. However, before land could be granted to 

incoming settlers, Native title had to be extinguished, a process that gradually 

whittled Penobscot and Passamaquoddy lands to almost nothing. 

To secure the loyalty of the Penobscots during the American Revolution, 

Massachusetts ocials met with tribal leaders at Watertown, Massachusetts, 

in 1775. e government forbade settlers from trespassing on Indian land and 

recognized Penobscot lands as consisting of a strip of territory six miles wide 

on both sides of the Penobscot River beginning at the head of tide (north of 

present-day Bangor) extending into the interior along the river’s course. 

Massachusetts would later interpret this description of land as constituting the 

extent of Penobscot lands, a position the Penobscots would contest. ey 

asserted that the corridor was simply to protect Indian land, and was not 

limited to the river valley.

Aer the war, Massachusetts tried to reach a land treaty with the Penobscots, 

but negotiations in 1784 and 1786 failed. Ten years later, in 1796, the Penobscots 

signed a treaty. In return for annual provisions to the tribe, the Penobscots 

ceded almost all of their land on either side of the Penobscot River in a corridor 

beginning at the head of tide on both sides of the Penobscot River stretching 

thirty miles upriver to the “state line.” e tribe retained numerous islands in the 

Penobscot River and their interior hunting territories above the thirty-mile 

mark. Surveyors soon incorporated the acquired lands into townships.

In 1818, a second treaty dealt with the Penobscot land in the interior. In 

return for ceding their vast interior hunting grounds, the tribe retained what 

was referred to as the “upper four Indian townships,” as well as the islands 

agreed upon in the 1796 treaty. In 1833, aer years of state pressure on the 

Penobscots to sell the townships, a controversial sale occurred. A number of 

tribal signers did not fully understand the agreement. Penobscot leaders 

petitioned the state government for a fair and just resolution, but the legislature 

did not grant the petitioners’ request.

e Passamaquoddies had a dierent treaty experience than the Penobscots. At 

the close of the American Revolution, the Passamaquoddies witnessed a 

sudden wave of British Loyalists and Americans settling their homeland. In 

1792, Passamaquoddy leaders, along with their Maliseet and Mi’kmaq neighbors, petitioned Massachusetts expressing concern about American settlement 

in their homeland. e petitioners requested two portions of land, one located 

along the Saint Croix River, the other on the seashore. Massachusetts granted 

the petitioners’ request in the 1794 Treaty, which created reserves at Indian 

Township and Pleasant Point. In contrast to Penobscot treaties, the Passamaquoddy treaty did not mention annual provisions, but it did secure land and 

usufruct rights at signicant places where Passamaquoddy engaged in cultural 

activities, including een islands in the Saint Croix River and West Branch, 

and y acres at West Quoddy for carrying rights. e treaty secured eel shing 

rights on the West and North Branch of the Saint Croix River. In 1798, 

boundary commissioners determined the Saint Croix River as the international 

boundary between the District of Maine (Massachusetts) and New Brunswick; 

the river lay at the heart of the Passamaquoddy homeland. e Passamaquoddy 

people, some of whom testied to the boundary commissioners, did not 

recognize this imposed division over their lands and continued to inhabit the 

eastern portions of their homeland. Nevertheless, the process of dening Native 

space in eastern Maine had signicantly reduced their traditional territory. 

e Penobscots understood the 1775 resolve as a pledge 

to support the Americans in return for the protection of 

the corridor which stretched six miles on each side of the 

river, but Massachusetts later interpreted the resolve as 

relinquishing Penobscot title to land outside the corridor.

Aer a failed attempt at a treaty in 1786, the Penobscots 

agreed to a treaty in 1796. e tribe retained islands in 

the Penobscot River from the head of tide at Bangor to 

the state line thirty miles upriver.

In the 1818 treaty, the Penobscots relinquished most of 

their hunting territories in the interior, but the tribe 

retained the river islands, the newly created upper four 

townships, and two acres on the riverfront in Brewer.

Aer 1833, the Penobscot land base was further 

reduced to islands in the Penobscot River. e 

process of naming the islands ocurred gradually, 

and some of the names changed. Names in teal 

refer to appellations in 1835. Island names in 

black were applied later in the nineteenth century.

e Passamaquoddy retained by treaty right een islands in the Saint 

Croix River that stretched from the head of tide at Calais, Maine, 

north to the mouth of the West Branch. By the 1830s, the islands were 

in dispute with adjacent settlers on both sides of the river. To further 

complicate matters, dam construction changed the river’s hydrography. 

e river’s main channel moved, altering some of the islands’ 

international jurisdiction between Maine and New Brunswick. In 

Granger v. Avery (1878), the Maine Supreme Court ruled against the 

Passamaquoddy claim to these islands, but many Passamaquoddy

people today still contend that their tribe is the rightful owner. 

1818 Penobscot Treaty

with Massachusetts

1796 Penobscot Treaty

with Massachusetts

1775 Resolve, Passed by the

Massachusetts Provincial Congress 1794 Passamaquoddy Treaty with Massachusetts

Disputed Islands in the

Saint Croix River, 1836

1833 Penobscot Treaty with Maine 

Dening Native Space Part II Plate23

Micah A. Pawling, Donald G. Soctomah

Map Area

Map Area

Map Area Marsh

Island

Old Town Island

Indian Island

Cow

Hemlock

Little Birch

Lewey Snake

Sapiel

Sugar

Olamon

Ground

Socks

Goose

Crag’s

Long

Gordon

Half Moon

Orono

Birch

Nicoli’s

Mattanawcook

Hockamock 

Orson 

White Squaw

Teal text: island name circa 1835 

Black text: island name post-1835

Thorofare Islands

Fiddler

Tomar

Hog

Grass

Nicolar

Houston

Little Nelson

Chokecherry

Freese (Freeze, also Mussquash)

Thorofare

Jackson

Foster

Horse

Beatham

Mohawk

(Mahockanock)

Bride

(Socs Islands)

(No Name Island)

Tarbox

(Craig)

Socks

Twin Islands

Black Boom Islands

Hersey

Snow

Brown Islands

Maine

Passadumkeag River

Mattawamkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Penobscot River

5 mi

5 km

0

Penobscot land

Calais

Baring

New Brunswick

Maine

Head of Tide

St. Stephen

Mill

Road

Road

Mill

International

boundary

Disputed island 

Salmon Falls

Bailey’s Rips

Sprague’s Falls

S a i n t C r o i x

R i v e r

1 mi

1 km

0

10 mi

10 km

0

Gouldsboro

No. 1

No. 10

No. 11 No. 12

No. 13

Harrington

No. 3

No. 17

No. 21

No. 19

No. 18

No. 26

No. 25

No. 24

No. 23

No. 22

No. 27

No. 15

No. 6

No. 10

No. 9

No. 8

No. 4

No. 5

No. 14

No. 13

No. 12

Machias

No. 18

No. 19

No. 23 No. 24 No. 25

No. 29

No. 30

No. 31

No. 35

No. 36

No. 37

No. 41 No. 42 No. 43

No. 4 No. 5

Granted to

Machias

Academy

No. 7 HANCOCK COUNTY

WASHINGTON COUNTY

Princeton

St. Stephen

Calais

St. Andrews Robbins Town

Pleasant Point

Eastport

Lubec

St. George

Peter Dana Point

Machias

Magaguadauic River

Passamaquoddy Bay

1798 Boundary

DISPUTED TERRITORY

1783–98 Boundary

New

Brunswick

Deer Island

Campobello Island

Grand Manan

Island

Passamaquoddy land

Campobello

Island

Lubec

West

Quoddy

Head

Carrying

Place Cove

Carrying

rights,

50 acres 1 mi

1 km 0

See detail map, left

See detail

map below

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN 

SETTLEMENT

Eel

rights

Nemcass Point

(Governor’s Point)

100 acres

JB Lacoute’s land

100 acres

Pleasant Point

10 acres

(100 acres by 1801)

Indian Twp

23,000 acres

Lewy

Island

10 acres

Pine Island

(White Island)

150 acres

15 islands in the 

Saint Croix River 

between head of 

tide and mouth of 

West Branch

Nemcass Point

(Governor’s Point)

100 acres

JB Lacoute’s land

100 acres

Eel rights

One additional eel right

granted on northern Saint Croix

Eel rights

Eel

rights

Pleasant Point

10 acres

(100 acres by 1801)

Indian Twp

23,000 acres

Schoodic Reserve

1786-1801

Lewy

Island

10 acres

Pine Island

(White Island)

150 acres

15 islands in the 

Saint Croix River 

between head of 

tide and mouth of 

West Branch

HANCO CK COUNTY

Hampden

Bangor

Orrington

Eddington

Frankfort Buckston

Penobscot

Blue Hill

Trenton

Sullivan

Eden

Mount Desert Sedgwick

Deer

Isle

Swan

Isle

Cranberry Isles

Prospect

No. 2

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8

No. 8

No. 14

No. 20

No. 26

No. 32

No. 38

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 5

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 15

No. 21

No. 27

No. 33

No. 39

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 16

No. 22

No. 28

No. 34

No. 40

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 41

No. 4

No. 4

No. 4

No. 5

No. 4

No. 4

Bingham’s Purchase

Howard Pease

King

N O R T H D I V I S I O N

M I D D L E D I V I S I O N

One million acres in these divisions

sold to Wm. Bingham Esq.

No. 9

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Mattawamkeag

River

Passadumkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Orono

Bangor Brewer

Castine

Head of tide

No. 3

No. 4

No. 1

No. 2

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN

SETTLEMENT

Upper four 

townships

1786 Treaty:

Black (Conary)

& White Island

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Piscataquis River

Mattawamkeag

River

Passadumkeag

River

Hampden

Bangor

Buckston

Penobscot

Blue Hill

Trenton

Mount Desert

Isle au Haut

Deer Isle

Sullivan

Sedgwick

Indian Lands

Indian Lands

No. 2

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8

No. 14

No. 20

No. 26

No. 32

No. 38

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 1

No. 15

No. 21

No. 27

No. 33

No. 39

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 2

No. 16

No. 22

No. 28

No. 34

No. 40

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 3

No. 4

No. 4

No. 4

No. 5

No. 4

Bingham’s Purchase

HANCO CK COUNTY

Howard Pease

King

N O R T H D I V I S I O N

M I D D L E D I V I S I O N

One million acres in these divisions

sold to Wm. Bingham Esq.

No. 9

Majabigwaduce

Castine

Bangor

Head of tide

S t a t e L i n e

LAND OPEN FOR 

AMERICAN

SETTLEMENT

1786 Treaty:

Black (Conary)

& White Island

Penobscot River

West Branch

East Branch

Penobscot Bay

Frenchman Bay

Passadumkeag

River

Mattawamkeag

River

Piscataquis River

Penobscot land 

Fort Pownall

1759–77

Majabigwaduce

Castine

Deer Isle

Mount Desert

Isle au Haut

THIRTEEN TOWNSHIPS

10 mi

10 km

0

Head of tide

LAND OPEN FOR 

SETTLEMENT

e United States and Great Britain contested the territory

lying east of the Penobscot River in the American Revolution (1775–1783) 

and again in the War of 1812 (1812–1816). e Saint Croix boundary 

agreement (1798) conrmed American possession of the area west of the 

Saint Croix River (the Schoodic) and Chiputneticook Lakes. To consolidate 

American control over the area, the governments of Massachusetts and Maine 

(aer 1820) encouraged settlement. However, before land could be granted to 

incoming settlers, Native title had to be extinguished, a process that gradually 

whittled Penobscot and Passamaquoddy lands to almost nothing. 

To secure the loyalty of the Penobscots during the American Revolution, 

Massachusetts ocials met with tribal leaders at Watertown, Massachusetts, 

in 1775. e government forbade settlers from trespassing on Indian land and 

recognized Penobscot lands as consisting of a strip of territory six miles wide 

on both sides of the Penobscot River beginning at the head of tide (north of 

present-day Bangor) extending into the interior along the river’s course. 

Massachusetts would later interpret this description of land as constituting the 

extent of Penobscot lands, a position the Penobscots would contest. ey 

asserted that the corridor was simply to protect Indian land, and was not 

limited to the river valley.

Aer the war, Massachusetts tried to reach a land treaty with the Penobscots, 

but negotiations in 1784 and 1786 failed. Ten years later, in 1796, the Penobscots 

signed a treaty. In return for annual provisions to the tribe, the Penobscots 

ceded almost all of their land on either side of the Penobscot River in a corridor 

beginning at the head of tide on both sides of the Penobscot River stretching 

thirty miles upriver to the “state line.” e tribe retained numerous islands in the 

Penobscot River and their interior hunting territories above the thirty-mile 

mark. Surveyors soon incorporated the acquired lands into townships.

In 1818, a second treaty dealt with the Penobscot land in the interior. In 

return for ceding their vast interior hunting grounds, the tribe retained what 

was referred to as the “upper four Indian townships,” as well as the islands 

agreed upon in the 1796 treaty. In 1833, aer years of state pressure on the 

Penobscots to sell the townships, a controversial sale occurred. A number of 

tribal signers did not fully understand the agreement. Penobscot leaders 

petitioned the state government for a fair and just resolution, but the legislature 

did not grant the petitioners’ request.

e Passamaquoddies had a dierent treaty experience than the Penobscots. At 

the close of the American Revolution, the Passamaquoddies witnessed a 

sudden wave of British Loyalists and Americans settling their homeland. In 

1792, Passamaquoddy leaders, along with their Maliseet and Mi’kmaq neighbors, petitioned Massachusetts expressing concern about American settlement 

in their homeland. e petitioners requested two portions of land, one located 

along the Saint Croix River, the other on the seashore. Massachusetts granted 

the petitioners’ request in the 1794 Treaty, which created reserves at Indian 

Township and Pleasant Point. In contrast to Penobscot treaties, the Passamaquoddy treaty did not mention annual provisions, but it did secure land and 

usufruct rights at signicant places where Passamaquoddy engaged in cultural 

activities, including een islands in the Saint Croix River and West Branch, 

and y acres at West Quoddy for carrying rights. e treaty secured eel shing 

rights on the West and North Branch of the Saint Croix River. In 1798, 

boundary commissioners determined the Saint Croix River as the international 

boundary between the District of Maine (Massachusetts) and New Brunswick; 

the river lay at the heart of the Passamaquoddy homeland. e Passamaquoddy 

people, some of whom testied to the boundary commissioners, did not 

recognize this imposed division over their lands and continued to inhabit the 

eastern portions of their homeland. Nevertheless, the process of dening Native 

space in eastern Maine had signicantly reduced their traditional territory. 

e Penobscots understood the 1775 resolve as a pledge 

to support the Americans in return for the protection of 

the corridor which stretched six miles on each side of the 

river, but Massachusetts later interpreted the resolve as 

relinquishing Penobscot title to land outside the corridor.

Aer a failed attempt at a treaty in 1786, the Penobscots 

agreed to a treaty in 1796. e tribe retained islands in 

the Penobscot River from the head of tide at Bangor to 

the state line thirty miles upriver.

In the 1818 treaty, the Penobscots relinquished most of 

their hunting territories in the interior, but the tribe 

retained the river islands, the newly created upper four 

townships, and two acres on the riverfront in Brewer.

Aer 1833, the Penobscot land base was further 

reduced to islands in the Penobscot River. e 

process of naming the islands ocurred gradually, 

and some of the names changed. Names in teal 

refer to appellations in 1835. Island names in 

black were applied later in the nineteenth century.

e Passamaquoddy retained by treaty right een islands in the Saint 

Croix River that stretched from the head of tide at Calais, Maine, 

north to the mouth of the West Branch. By the 1830s, the islands were 

in dispute with adjacent settlers on both sides of the river. To further 

complicate matters, dam construction changed the river’s hydrography. 

e river’s main channel moved, altering some of the islands’ 

international jurisdiction between Maine and New Brunswick. In 

Granger v. Avery (1878), the Maine Supreme Court ruled against the 

Passamaquoddy claim to these islands, but many Passamaquoddy 

people today still contend that their tribe is the rightful owner. 

1818 Penobscot Treaty

with Massachusetts

1796 Penobscot Treaty

with Massachusetts

1775 Resolve, Passed by the

Massachusetts Provincial Congress 1794 Passamaquoddy Treaty with Massachusetts

Disputed Islands in the

Saint Croix River, 1836

1833 Penobscot Treaty with Maine 

Dening Native Space Part II Plate23

Micah A. Pawling, Donald G. Soctomah

Map Area

Map Area

Map Area